This Woman Gained 50 Pounds to Prove There Are No Excuses for Being Overweight

Katie Hopkins—who appeared on the U.K.'s The Apprentice and I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!—embarked on a project to gain 50 pounds. Why? Because, she says, she wanted to prove that people who are overweight have only themselves to blame.

Hopkins received massive criticism on Twitter when she told a British talk-show host: "I don't believe you can be fat and happy. I think that's just a cop out." To prove it, she began eating 6,500 calories a day, in the form of burgers, fries, cupcakes, pasta. According to Today, she would sometimes eat to the point that she'd break down in tears. Hopkins gained 50 pounds in three months—but now comes the next step in her project: Losing the weight (which is arguably the harder part). She's altered her diet drastically and has been exercising regularly but still has 35 pounds to lose within two months.

But her project has also—to some degree—changed her tune about what it means to be overweight.

She told Today: "I've learned a lot about how it feels to be big, how difficult it is to be big, how horrible it is to have fat sitting on the top of your thighs, and how much more challenging it is just to do everyday life when you're bigger."